Arkansas revenues dip in October

The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration said Friday that the state's net available revenues in October totaled $355.6 million. That's $9 million below last year and $21.6 million below forecast.

The state's revenues for the fiscal year that began July 1 are $20.5 million above forecast.

The department said the dip was driven mainly by a temporary downswing in individual income tax from payroll timing in withholding tax. Individual income tax collections were below last year by $10.7 million. and $2.3 million below forecast.

Sales tax collections were $1.1 million below last year's figures and $8.3 million below forecast.

Man kills himself as agents served warrant

STAMPS (AP) - Authorities say a south Arkansas man fatally shot himself as federal agents tried to serve a warrant at his home.

Special agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations agency went to a home in Stamps on Wednesday to serve the warrant.

Agency spokesman Bryan Cox says the agents heard a single gunshot before entering the home. The man was taken to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, where he was pronounced dead.

Cox tells the Texarkana Gazette that agents were serving a warrant to seize a thumb drive that allegedly contained images of child pornography.

1 killed after church van crash

PINDALL (AP) - Authorities say one person is dead after a three-vehicle collision involving a van carrying 20 people from a Hot Springs church.

Arkansas State Police say the crash happened Thursday afternoon on U.S. 65 one mile south of Pindall in Searcy County. Authorities tell the Harrison Daily Times that the fatal crash involved a car, a pickup truck and a van carrying members of Center Fork Baptist Church who were headed to Branson, Mo.

Authorities say the car and truck were traveling south on U.S. 65 and the van was traveling north. Police have not yet said what caused the head-on crash.

The pickup's driver, 67-year-old Ronald Battershell of Marshall, was killed in the collision.

Authorities say several people in the van suffered minor injuries in the crash.

State approves 3 new charter schools

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - The Arkansas Board of Education has approved three new charter schools in Little Rock, Bentonville and Pine Bluff.

The state board approved the requests Thursday. All three new schools are sponsored by Texas-based Responsive Education Solutions.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the three new charter schools are scheduled to open in August 2013. Arkansas has 16 independently run, taxpayer-financed charter schools currently open in the state.

The board approved a request to establish a charter high school, known as Premier High School of Little Rock, on the Arkansas Baptist College campus. Supporters say the school will target high school dropouts and students at risk of dropping out.

The board also approved the establishment of Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy in Bentonville and Quest Middle School in Pine Bluff.

Former Searcy editor Perrin Jones dies

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Perrin Jones, who edited The Daily Citizen in Searcy for decades, has died. He was 80.

Pastor Steve Hancock of the Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock confirmed the death Friday to The Associated Press and said the church will handle the funeral service.

Jones' family owned The Daily Citizen for three generations and served as editor from 1954 until 1986, several years after the paper was sold. He continued to write a weekly column, the last of which appeared Sept. 21.

Jones then worked at the Arkansas attorney general's office from 1990 until 2010.

Jones told his old newspaper in 2011 that he never bought equipment that he couldn't run himself, so that the paper would be assured of publishing every day.

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State Briefs

Arkansas finance officials say weak sales and income tax collections pushed the state's revenues in October below last year's figures and their predictions.